Lady Hester Stanhope
Lamartine, in his "Voyage en Orient," gives a fine description of his visit to Lady Hester Stanhope's retreat on the slopes of Mount Lebanon.
"Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of Mr. Pitt, after the death of her uncle, left England, and travelled over Europe. Young, beautiful, and rich, she received everywhere the welcome due to her rank, her fortune, her intelligence, and her beauty.
"But she refused constantly to unite her destiny to that of her most worthy admirers; and, after a few years passed in the capitals of Europe, she started, with numerous followers, for Constantinople. The motive for this voluntary exile could never be fully determined. Some attributed it to the death of a young English general killed about that time in Spain; others to a simple love of adventure, which the enterprising and courageous character of this young lady might well lead them to believe. But, whatever it might be, she started. After a few years spent in Constantinople, she started for Syria in an English vessel. She carried with her a large portion of her treasures,--immense wealth in jewels and presents of all kinds.
"A storm assailed the vessel in the Gulf of Macri, on the coast of Caramime, opposite the island of Rhodes. The vessel grounded on a rock a few miles from the coast. It was almost instantly wrecked, and the treasures of Lady Stanhope were ingulfed in the waves. She herself narrowly escaped death, and was carried on a piece of the vessel to a small, deserted island, where she spent twenty-four hours without food and without assistance. At last some fishermen of Marmoriza, who were searching for debris of the shipwreck, discovered her, and took her to Rhodes, where she made herself known to the English consul.
"This deplorable event did not weaken her resolution She went to Malta, and from there to England. She gathered together the remains of her fortune, sold at a great loss a portion of her domains, laded a second vessel with rich presents for the countries which she desired to pass through, and again set sail. The voyage was successful; and she landed at Latakia, the ancient Laodicea, on the coast of Syria, between Tripoli and Alexandria
"She established herself in the neighborhood, learned the Arabic, surrounded herself with persons who could facilitate her relations with the different tribes-Arabs, Druses, Maronites--of the country; and she prepared herself (as I was doing at the same time) to make voyages of discovery in the least accessible parts of Arabia, Mesopotamia, and the desert. When she had familiarized herself with the language, customs, and the usages of the country, she organized a numerous caravan, loaded camels with rich presents for the Arabs, and travelled through the different parts of Syria. She sojourned at Jerusalem, at Damascus, at Aleppo, at Baalbec, and Palmyra. It was in this last place that the numerous wandering Arab tribes, which had allowed her to visit the ruins, assembled around her to the number of about fifty thousand, and charmed with her beauty, grace, and magnificence, proclaimed her the Queen of Palmyra, and gave to her passports by which it was agreed that all Europeans protected by her could visit in safety the desert, the ruins of Baalbec and Palmyra, provided that he agreed to pay a tribute of a thousand dollars. This treaty still exists, and would be faithfully executed by the Arabs if they could have positive proofs of the protection of Lady Stanhope.
"On her return to Palmyra she was nearly captured by a numerous tribe of other Arabs, enemies of those of Palmyra. She was warned in time by one of her own, and owed her salvation and that of her caravan to a forced midnight march and the fleetness of her horses, which travelled in twenty-four hours an incredible space of the desert. She returned to Damascus, where she resided a few months under the protection of the Turkish Pasha, to whom the Porte had recommended her very heartily.
"After a wandering life in all the countries of the Orient, Lady Stanhope fixed herself at last in an almost inaccessible solitude on one of the mountains of Lebanon, in the neighborhood of Sidon.
"The Pasha of Abdalla, who had for her a great respect,--an absolute devotedness,--conceded to her the ruins of a convent and the village of Digioun, settled by the Druses.
"Lady Stanhope was about fifty years of age. She had those features that years do not change. Freshness, color, grace, disappear with youth; but when beauty is in the form, in the purity of the lines, in the dignity, the majesty, the expression of man or woman, beauty changes with the different epochs of life, but does not pass away.
"Such was that of Lady Stanhope."